How Do Hate Crimes Impact People and Communities?

In this unit, students will encounter descriptions of hate crimes and their impacts on people and communities. While we have chosen examples that we believe convey the seriousness of these crimes without being overly graphic, this topic is emotionally challenging and can elicit a range of emotional responses from students. We can’t emphasize enough the importance of previewing the resources in this curriculum to make sure they are appropriate for the intellectual and emotional needs of your students.

It is difficult to predict how students will respond to such challenging content. One student may respond with emotion to an account or source, while others may not find it powerful in the same way. In addition, different people demonstrate emotion in different ways. Some students will be silent. Some may laugh. Some may not want to talk. Some may take days to process difficult stories. For some, a particular firsthand account may be incomprehensible; for others, it may be familiar.

We urge teachers to create space for students to have a range of reactions and emotions, while also holding students accountable to your class norms. This might include allowing time for silent reflection or writing in journals, as well as facilitating structured discussions to help students process content together. Some students will not want to share their reactions to emotionally challenging content in class, and teachers should respect that in discussions. For their learning and emotional growth, it is crucial to allow for a variety of student responses to emotionally challenging content.

In addition to the examples in section 2 of the explainer that students read in Activity 2, ask your students to read and discuss the following examples from news stories:

1. Flayton [who is 20] sometimes takes off his yarmulke [small round cap] when he goes out on the streets in New York. He’s seen the attacks against people in his own Brooklyn neighborhood, people targeted for being visibly Jewish, and takes the decision with a heavy heart. “At the end of the day, I don’t want to get attacked on the train,” he says. ¹
   
   Reflect: How do hate crimes targeting Jews impact the way Flayton feels able to express his identity in public?
2. Chris Kwok is a board member of the Asian American Bar Association of New York. In 2021 he described his reaction to the increase in hate crimes targeting people of Asian descent in New York City that occurred during the pandemic. 

   “The political and social invisibility of Asian-Americans have real-life consequences,” Mr. Kwok said. “The invisibility comes from Asian-Americans being seen as permanent foreigners — they can’t cross that invisible line into becoming real Americans.”

   Several highly publicized incidents early in the pandemic were not handled as hate crimes, Mr. Kwok said. If they had been, it “would have sent a signal that this was unacceptable and that if you were going to target Asian-Americans, there would be consequences,” he said. ²

   Reflect: If the incidents targeting Asian Americans that Chris Kwok mentions were prosecuted as hate crimes, what messages about belonging would that send?

• 1Mallory Simon, “Not just neo-Nazis with tiki torches: Why Jewish students say they also fear cloaked anti-Semitism,” CNN, July 1, 2021.
• 2Alexandra E. Petri and Daniel E. Slotnik, “Attacks on Asian-Americans in New York Stoke Fear, Anxiety and Anger,” New York Times, October 15, 2021.